The Tidal Model and Nursing Education
Loretta Whitehorne
The Registered Nurses Professional Development Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, offers a Post-RN Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing Program (PMHNP) that incorporates the Tidal Modal and a person centered philosophy. The PMHNP is a performance based certification program that prepares registered nurses for the professional practice of inpatient Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing. The PMHNP utilizes a competency-based methodology to achieve its performance–based certification. The competencies for the program are arranged under five general areas critical thinking, clinical practice, relationship centered practice, professionalism, and leadership.
The PMHNP consists of comprehensive print-based lessons that are supported with required readings, videotapes, and computer based technologies. Interactive opportunities, which include learning labs, are provided to enhance knowledge and skill development. Knowledge is assessed through examinations and skills are assessed in a simulated situation prior to precepted clinical experiences.
The PMHNP integrates the Tidal Model and a person-centered philosophy throughout the program. Psychiatric and mental health nursing: The craft of caring. London (2003), edited by Phil Barker, and the Tidal Manual, Barker, P. & Buchanan-Barker, P. (2000). The tidal model: A recovery-based approach to mental health care, are required texts for the course. Learners’ skills in using the Holistic Assessment and the Nurses Global Assessment of Suicide Risk are tested in an Objective Structure Clinical Exam prior to being preformed in the clinical setting.
The PMHNP emphasizes that the role or focus of nursing is the person and family response to illness rather than the disease process. A person-centered approach, such as the Tidal model that respects the lived experience of the person and his/her significant others is used to guide the nursing care outlined in the program and ensures that comprehensive care is provided to individuals and families experiencing distress as a result of psychiatric illnesses.
